The Shadows Lurking in The Power Mesh

The purpose of my posts is to deepen your awareness of human power dynamics—so you can act more consciously as a leader and/or follower when leaders hold asymmetrical control over institutional decisions and resources.

Earlier posts explored the different kinds of power operating in The Power Mesh and the wide diversity of needs, worldviews, and future visions that make communication and decision-making so challenging.
This post adds two new players to the Mesh soup: the leaders’ and followers’ shadows.

Temptation Is Powerʼs Companion

Wherever asymmetrical power exists, temptation lurks nearby—ready to bend that power toward personal benefit, whether for leaders or followers. Falling prey to its allure can derail even the best intentions and spread harm to all the Institution touches.

Institutional power also holds tremendous potential for leverage, learning, and legacy. But in this post, I want to turn the spotlight toward its shadow side—with more to come later.

A Personal Example

It was 1958. Eighth grade. The oldest class in the school—we’d all looked forward to this moment. Some of us, including me, were chosen for the school patrol. Wow! My first formal power role.

Like the others, I wore a silver badge pinned to a thick brown belt slung diagonally across my chest and around my waist. I carried a flag to stop traffic at our corner crossings.

With that badge and flag, I stepped into another persona—one with powers far beyond my freckle-faced, 14-year-old self, with a brace on my leg and a long last name few could spell.
In my police-girl role, I felt supercharged—and, I’ll admit, just a notch above the kids I was helping across the street. I felt that extra surge of POWER.

At fourteen, I had one of my first lessons about institutional power: it carries its own energy. That energy—attached to formal authority—has fascinated and disturbed me ever since.

Later, I saw this energy at work in the leaders I coached. Here is an example:

One top executive in a Fortune 100 company told me this: on the Friday after he was promoted to a senior executive position, he made this offhand comment when he entered his new office, “It’s dark here, isn’t it?” Returning to work on Monday, he found a freshly painted room with new lighter furniture. “I didn’t expect them to do this,” he told me.

Of course, he didn’t realize that in his new position, when he speaks he carries the weight of the institution, with power over careers and resource allocations. When he speaks, he roars!

We’d like to think leadership is a rational process—something we can teach through models and formulas. But this is not totally true. Once power differences enter the picture, rationality often flies out the window.

Unless both leaders and followers remain alert to these dynamics, actual and perceived power imbalances shape everyone’s behavior, often replacing commitment to shared goals with defensive or self-serving maneuvers.

In psychological terms, the shadow is a constant companion wherever there is power.

What Is the Shadow?

The shadow is the metaphorical—and often unconscious—place where we hide disowned parts of ourselves. We may unconsciously marginalize or deny our anger, fear, physical, and emotional needs. We also may repress early dreams, assertiveness, or creativity that parents or authority figures may have minimized or punished.

As adults, we may still marginalize these energies—yet they live on beneath the surface, fueling overreactions or distortions.

Human drives for wealth, status, reputation, or winning can also take shadow form when taken to extremes. Like our physical shadow in sunlight, these unseen parts always accompany us—but they don’t have to control us. They are simply part of being human. No one is immune.

For people in formal authority, the shadow plays out on multiple stages. Leaders carry their own personal shadows—often evoked by followers, bosses, or colleagues—but they also inherit the shadows embedded in their organization’s culture and norms.

In one institution, authority may mean command and control, pushing participation into the shadows. In another, it may take on a paternalistic flavor, creating parent-child dynamics that suppress initiative.

What leaders or institutions repress—whether creativity, dissent, or autonomy—can surface as blame, energy diversion (scrolling the Internet at work? complaining but not voting?), or even malicious compliance.

There is enormous energy—both creative and destructive—in the shadow. The first step toward constructive use is simple: recognize the shadow when it appears.

Shadows in The Power Mesh

Imagine any leader—elected, appointed, or executive—who controls vast institutional resources: the President, a senator, an agency head, or a CEO.

They all bring their own shadows into the Mesh. Unless these powerful leaders are self-aware and vigilant, there are real dangers of overreach, misuses, and abuses of their institutional authority.

But they’re not alone with their shadows. Those they lead have their shadows too, and may engage—consciously or unconsciously—in flattery, manipulation, or collusion to get what they want.

Sometimes, leaders’ and followers’ shadows join in a kind of dance—feeding one another’s unmet needs or disowned ambitions. The result can amplify and accelerate powerful psychological energies to achieve great things… or to destroy.

Temptations to misuse or abuse power are constant companions of authority.

Unaware and self-aggrandizing leaders aren’t the only ones whose shadows affect behavior. I’ve heard shadows’ siren songs in the offices of some of the best leaders I’ve worked with—in government and business around the world. The difference is that exceptional leaders recognize they are being called to the dark side. They have the character and tools to respond wisely, and the humility to admit power missteps when they occur.

From Shadows to Light

The best leaders see temptations as wake-up calls to higher consciousness, reflection, and learning. What do they do differently?

• Recognize temptations to misuse or abuse their power for personal gain.
• Step back and reflect on their own motives.
• Involve others in decisions when shadow motives may be in play.
• Anchor decisions in deeply held values—especially when personal and institutional goals might conflict.
• Seek honest feedback from people who will tell them the truth.
• Engage in continuous learning—on the job and in developmental settings.
• Use third parties to lead discussions when the goal is to explore new ideas and challenge assumptions. Leaders do this so they can participate as equals, with the facilitator helping to equalize idea power. Later, they can use their asymmetrical power to make the final decisions.

The same spirit of reflection and action applies to followers.

This article is an invitation—for leaders and followers alike—to become ever more aware of the shadows that accompany formal power.

Shadows can derail the best intentions of leaders and followers. And shadows can be powerful, and sometimes corrupting, players in The Power Mesh. The first antidote is awareness.